They would find it a very poor comfort. When soldiers have
to set out fasting on fatiguing duty, when nurses have to go fasting in
to their patients, it is a hot restorative they want, and ought to have,
before they go, not a cold bit of bread. And dreadful have been the
consequences of neglecting this. If they can take a bit of bread _with_
the hot cup of tea, so much the better, but not _instead_ of it. The
fact that there is more nourishment in bread than in almost anything
else has probably induced the mistake. That it is a fatal mistake there
is no doubt. It seems, though very little is known on the subject, that
what "assimilates" itself directly and with the least trouble of
digestion with the human body is the best for the above circumstances.
Bread requires two or three processes of assimilation, before it becomes
like the human body.
The almost universal testimony of English men and women who have
undergone great fatigue, such as riding long journeys without stopping,
or sitting up for several nights in succession, is that they could do it
best upon an occasional cup of tea--and nothing else.
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